


Home

by Kooriicolada (WHM_Koorii)



Series: Built to Last [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fingering, Interspecies Sex, Missing Scene, Schmoop, Vaginal Sex, handjob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:10:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5246111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WHM_Koorii/pseuds/Kooriicolada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[A "missing scene" from Hell and High Water Chapter 7, of sorts.]</p>
<p>"Feels good to be home," he said.</p>
<p>Shepard smiled at him, holding her hands out and without needing to think twice Garrus reached back. He stepped in close to her, her hands drifting up his arms to start undoing the seals on his armor. Gently, gently, he ran the back of one knuckle down the line of her shoulder.</p>
<p>"Yeah," she said, "it does."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is the result of a friend going "Hey, you should expand on that scene in Hell and High Water where they clearly have reunion sex. I said sure, and here we are.

__ "Feels good to be home," he said.  
  


_Shepard smiled at him, holding her hands out and without needing to think twice Garrus reached back. He stepped in close to her, her hands drifting up his arms to start undoing the seals on his armor. Gently, gently, he ran the back of one knuckle down the line of her shoulder._   
  


_"Yeah," she said, "it does."_   
  


Garrus' gauntlets clattered to the floor and he reached for her.  His long fingers curled along Shepard's jaw and cheeks, thumb brushing under her bottom lip.  She reared up as he hunched over and pressed his mouth to her forehead before she caught him and pulled him into a kiss.  Her breath was a warm rush against the inside of his mandibles, her lips molding against his mouth plates then dragging to the side.  Shepard pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to his scar-laced skin and Garrus breathed a warm sigh of his own against her cheek.  The scars were always so much more _sensitive_.  With the plates sheared away and his rough hide still softer and smoother he could feel the pliable press of her lips in intimate detail.  
  


The seals on his sides gave way beneath Shepard's quick fingers and Garrus stepped back to ease the chest plate to the ground.  "Is this how my welcome back was supposed to go?" he asked, voice gone lower and throatier. "Because I'm feeling a bit cheated here."  
  


Shepard sat back, hands braced on top of the bed and smirked up at him. "Garrus," she said.   _That_ tone of voice, in her strange human vocals, made him feel warm from crest to toes just the way it always did.  
  


"Between the Rachni, the near starvation, and being the sole turian on an Alliance dreadnought," he drawled, popping the seals on his greaves.  "They kept you busy, delayed our reunion protocols…."  
  


" _Garrus_ ," Shepard said again.  Her words were thick with fond exasperation, but when he finished shedding his armor and stepped back toward her she reached for the zip on his undersuit.  Together they slid the slim, black material off his arms and Shepard rose up to press a kiss against the jut of his keel.  Gently, he palmed the side of her neck, long fingers and thumb wrapping around her throat affectionately.  
  


Shepard looked up at him then, and the next quip died on his tongue.  Carefully, almost reverently, he smoothed his thumb up and down the line of her throat, from beneath her chin to near the dip of her clavicle.  He breathed out, letting the words die in his throat, and leaned into her.  His forehead pressed to hers, and his other hand found its way to the small of her back.  Eyes closed, he savored the feel of her hands settling on either side of his neck, her thumbs mimicking his previous caress.  
  


When he looked at her again, Garrus took in the familiar shadows under her eyes.  Sliding his hand up, he felt her hair sift across his fingers and cupped the back of her head.  The pad of his thumb passed over the dark smudge beneath her eye.  "How are you really?" he asked, voice dropping into the lower registers.   
  


A quiet intimacy fell between them as Shepard stepped closer to him.  She pressed against the ridge of his keel and lay her cheek on the slow rise of his cowl.  "Tired," she admitted, and sounded it too.  "But restless, too."  
  


"Mmmm, well...You have been on the go since you decided to chase Saren down.  Bar those two years you spent dead, of course."  She huffed out a quiet laugh which Garrus took as a personal victory.  Running the tips of his claws along the line of her spine, he said, "If anyone deserves as much downtime as they want it's us. The whole crew… Damn, come to think of it, I think the entire galaxy deserves a getaway."  He looked down at her and smiled. "Oh, wait...that's right.  They got a break thanks to _you_."  
  


"You always know what to say to cheer me up," Shepard said.  Her smile was warm when she hooked her nimble fingers over his cowl and hauled him down closer.  Rumbling out a laugh, Garrus pressed back against her lips as she kissed him, long and slow.  He caught her lower lip with his front most teeth, scraping lightly as she pulled away.  Shepard's grin went coy, then.  "Now, are you going to get in my bed or not?"  
  


"Your bed?" he asked, voice lilting with his teasing.  Garrus gripped her hip, and backed her up a couple of steps.  She followed as beautifully as she had during their tango; a few stumbles before getting it right.  "I seem to remember someone inviting me to call these quarters mine."  
  


"Oh?" Shepard twisted out of his grip, lithe and quick. Not quick or far enough, however.  Shepard let out a dumbfounded yell when Garrus lunged forward and caught her around the waist before tossing her onto the bed.  "Oh you are so going to pay for that," she hissed, shoving herself into a sitting position.  
  


Garrus spread his mandibles just so she could see every inch of his toothy grin, and braced his toes on the foot of the bed.  Reaching down, he undid the straps of his undersuit near his spurs.  "You know, Shepard with the way you take me to the nicest hellholes in the galaxy, and say these things…."  He tilted his head, eyeing her for a long moment. "Well, you really might never get rid of me."  
  


She smirked back at him and caught the hem of her shirt in her fingers.  In a quick, efficient motion, she pulled it off, tossed it aside, and settled back on her elbows. "Don't you know?" she asked, and damned if that confident look on her face hadn't always made his blood run hot.  "That's the _plan_."  
  


Shifting, Garrus braced his other foot up on the bed, pulling the straps free again. "Good to know…" he murmured, gaze sweeping over the planes of skin at her stomach, up to her collar bone.  "I'm always interested in, mmmm, tactical exploration of new territory."  
  


Garrus rocked forward smoothly, landing on hands and knees and prowled up the bed toward her.  Shepard's smirk never wavered as she watched him, keen eyed and inviting. Drawing level with her, he pressed his mouth to hers, inviting another long kiss that had her sighing and him humming.  
  


"Besides," she said, pulling away and palming his scarred mandible, "you chose to follow me into all of those hellholes."  
  


"Right, right," he drawled, "I forgot.  We can say no to suicide missions."  Gently, he hooked a claw under the strap of her bra and slid it down over the curve of her shoulder.  His fingertip kept going, tracing along the simple black fabric to the line of lace settled across the upper curve of her breasts.  In the wake of his touch, her flesh rose into goosebumps.  
  


"Pretty sure you don't get an out anymore, Garrus," she said, her hands curling against the back of his neck.  He could feel the way her blunt nails slid lightly over his hide, trailing downward toward the dip of his cowl. "You signed on for every suicide mission when you asked me to be a one turian woman."  
  


"Ah," he said, breathing the sound against the valley of her breasts.  Her fingers twitched against his neck.  "Must have been in the fine print."  
  


Shepard's mouth moved close to his cheek though she didn't quite lay a kiss on him. "You never did get along with red tape."  
  


Unable to help himself, Garrus gave a startled laugh at the quip that swiftly turned into a pleased thrum when Shepard's fingers ran along the more sensitive skin on the inside of his cowl.  "That was bad, Shepard."  
  


Her eyebrows rose to flirt with her hairline as she looked at him. "Think you can do better?" And her tone alone said everything the words did not: ' _We've heard your metaphors, and we both know they're a wreck_.'  
  


Deciding to err on the side of caution he hummed and dipped his head back down. "Better to show you."  Garrus snaked his tongue out, letting it drag over the upper curve of her breast, leaving skin and lace damp in his wake.  She trembled beneath him, the line of his keel pressing against her soft stomach. Nuzzling into the giving flesh of her breast, Garrus shifted upward and sought out the sharp line of her collarbone.  That, too, he traced with his tongue, swirling it in that fine little dip between each wing.  
  


He was inordinately fond of that little dip and the way it was shadowed when she stretched her arms, workout attire drawn taut around the curves and edges of her figure.    
  


Shepard's nails glided along the familiar grooves and ridges of his cowl, tracing the pattern of scars on one side and the smoother plates on the other.  Reaching up, Garrus waved her hands away and sat back on his knees. As if in surrender, she let her arms fall to the bed, sprawled haphazardly over her head.  Garrus knew better than to view it as any sort of surrender, though.  Commander Shepard didn't _surrender_.  
  


For several long seconds, he took her in.  He loved seeing her like this, so at ease in her own skin even spread out before him.  She emanated a breath-taking confidence that he'd recognized and admired from the first time he'd met her.  Here was someone who was completely at peace with themselves, who knew how to use every part of their body as a precise and powerful weapon.  Someone, he thought, who knew just how good she was but didn't laud it over others.  
  


Curling forward, he reached out and hooked one finger under the other strap of her bra and drew it down over the curve of her shoulder just as he had done with the first.  It was always _fascinating_ the way her skin shifted and gave, changing and sliding back into smoothness as his touch passed.  Garrus dragged the pad of his thumb over her skin, feeling the small goosebumps that had formed in the passage of his touch.  Cupping his hand alongside her bicep, he drew his palm to her forearm.  The thin little hairs there always felt so...strange, so alien, and yet familiar.    
  


He looked at her again, meeting her eyes.  After everything that had happened he couldn't help but want to savor this down to every, singular moment.  Garrus sat back again and reached up, never once breaking eye contact, to remove his visor.  He leaned over her to set it on the side table, her fingers sliding down the sides of his keel to feather over his stomach.  Sitting back, he caught up her hand and pressed his mouth against her palm, those strange-familiar fingers twitching against the sharp ridges of his face.  
  


The silence stretched out between them, filled with unsaid sentiments and the things they had shared in the past.  Shepard's mobile mouth tipped into a teasing and challenging smile, and without hesitation, Garrus rose to meet her as he always did.    
  


Looming over her, he hooked his claws into the cups of her bra and pulled them down off her breasts.  Her nipples, already pebbled, peaked further in the cool recycled air of the room.  Garrus brushed the back of one knuckle against one and leaned in to touch his mandible to her cheek.  Her breath ghosted warmly against his neck as he moved from her cheek to her neck and mouthed down her collarbone.  Shepard's hands passed over his crest to clasp behind it briefly, then restless, moved to cup his face.    
  


Garrus licked a warm, wet trail down her chest and nuzzled against the giving flesh of her right breast.  Her hands were warm and firm against his hide, her breathing hitching in little fits and starts.  Palming her waist, he stroked down to her hip then back up and encouraged her to arch beneath him.  He slid his hand under her back and tugged her bra down a little further, eyes rolling up to watch her.  Shepard smiled down at him as his fingers sought, found, and undid the clasp.  
  


"Good to see you haven't forgotten."  
  


"Never going to happen," he said dryly, and smirked at the way she shuddered when he spoke against her flesh. "It took too long to figure out."  
  


She laughed, her chest shifting beneath his chin and rubbing against his throat.  Shepard shifted her knee to bump against his hip fondly. Grinning, Garrus buried his face in the valley of her breasts and inhaled the scent of her.  She only laughed again, her fingers kneading up the back of his neck.  Her hands caught under his mandibles and tugged lightly, drawing him up. Garrus went all too willingly.    
  


Shepard pressed her mouth to his, her tongue curling nimbly under his upper lip-plate.  Thrumming pleasantly, he pressed closer to taste her lower lip, the roof of her mouth, hot and heady and so _damned_ happy that he could still be with her like this.  His fingers caught the fabric of her bra and drew it down, her hands dropping away from him so he could pulled it free.  Garrus dropped it carelessly off the side of the bed and wrapped one hand around the back of her neck.  Shepard hummed against the press of his mouth.  Sometimes, it still amazed him how easy this came to him now.  
  


Her hands touched under his jaw, nudging upward, and reluctantly Garrus broke away from the languid kiss they'd been sharing.  His disappointment was squashed immediately when Shepard pressed a kiss to the soft, tender skin at the top of his throat.  Gently, gently, she scraped her teeth against the soft fold of hide there, and Garrus tilted his head further up.  She swept her thumbs against the side of his neck, pressed a hot, open mouthed kiss to him, then released his head from the cradle of her hands.  
  


Rumbling deep in his throat, Garrus curled closer to her, blood running hot and intense.  He let himself slide down to rest on the bed beside her, one leg still tossed across hers.  The flush of color in her skin drew him in, and he couldn't stop himself from nipping at her shoulder and running a hand down the length of her body from breast to hip.  She shivered beneath the light sting of his teeth, her hand running up his forearm in warm approval.  
  


"You have no idea how much I've missed this. Missed you."  She was looking at him now, face marked with a mixture of weariness and want.  Garrus reached for her, palmed her cheek, and rubbed his thumb along the lines at the corner of her eye.  
  


"I might," he said, barely more than a breath.  Tucking his head close to hers, he drew her closer still, into the circle of his arms. "Have an idea, I mean."  His voice was husky with more than his want of her.  Garrus was certain she could hear the shadow of his mourning.  Closing his eyes, he smoothed his hand down her throat and traced patterns down her breasts with the tips of his claws that had her shifting restlessly against him.  
  


Breathless but serious, she said, "I'll always find you, Garrus."  Her fingers curled around his wrist, squeezing.  
  


"I know," he said, and he _did_.  There wasn't a time that Shepard had ever failed him. Flattening his palm over the warm skin of her stomach, he slid his hand lower.  Lifting his head, he looked down at her and smiled when she caught him around the back of the head and drew him closer until his forehead rested to hers, her nose pressed against his.  
  


His long fingers slid along the waistline of her pants before sneaking beneath.  Inch by inch, his touch drifted down her lower stomach.  Beneath his palm her skin grew warmer, and the coarse hairs at the apex of her thighs tangled around his claws. Garrus flared his mandibles in a quick smirk.  He could feel the pace of her breath increasing in anticipation; hot, wispy gusts against his face.  
  


Garrus slid one finger through her warm, damp folds, just barely brushing over her clit.  Her breath hitched sharply against his cheek.  In a practiced movement, he drew her in closer until he could hook his head over hers and cradle her close.  She moved with him, throwing her leg over his.  Voicing a low thrum, Garrus dipped a finger into her, testing familiar waters.  She was as soft and warm as ever, and he breathed out a rough sound.  His talons tangled in her hair as he cupped her. The heat of her seared against his palm, and he curled his other hand along the side of her neck as she began to roll her hips.    
  


The close restriction of her pants kept him from moving too much, but Shepard more than made up for it.  She ground down against his hand, sliding onto his claw and rubbing her clitoris into the meat of his palm.  
  


He watched helplessly as she parted and wet her lips.  The way her hair stuck to them was utterly enthralling.  Shepard clutched at his cowl and at the jut of his hip.  Then, almost jerkily, the hand she had at his hip moved to clasp over his arm, her fingers pressing at the thinner hide inside his elbow.  It sent a shudder through him, and in response Shepard hitched her leg further up.  She made a small noise as he sunk his finger further into her, the rough pad of the other toying along her damp folds.    
  


Garrus drew her back close, tucking her beneath his chin where she pressed her soft mouth against the sensitive underside of his neck.  He rocked his own hips forward, pressing his unsheathed erection against her through the fabric between them.  Seeking, and then crooking his finger against that ridged little spot within her, he heard the familiar intake of breath Shepard always gave when he pressed.  Her muscles tightened, body going tense and strung taut.  Garrus huffed a quiet triumphant laugh against her hair.  
  
"Keep going," she gasped.  No, demanded.    
  


Pulling back against the fabric of her pants, he slid his fingers through the wetness gathered between her legs and carefully, carefully, slid both long fingers into her.  The sound she made was more of a hiss than anything, but he well knew it was a hiss of approval.  He found those sensitive little spots within once more and pressed, rubbed, quick and precise.  All the little tricks he had learned to drive her wild.  
  


Shepard's head rocked back and Garrus immediately dipped down to run his tongue over her throat, his mandibles fluttering against her skin.  She tasted of musky sweat, like sex and want on his tongue.  
  


Every jerk of her hips was a little more insistent, a little more wild.  The sounds she made grew just that much more ragged, and he was relentless.  He kept it up, intent and unrelenting. Everything narrowed down to his mouth on her, his hands on her until she writhed and bucked. Until she went tight, shattered, and fell apart completely with a gasping and a near triumphant cry.  It was so much like the sound she made when she got the perfect headshot that it made him laugh.  
  


He rode the orgasm out with her, fingers clenched by her spasming muscles, his touch soothing her down the fall from the high.  Garrus tangled his other hand in her hair, drawing it back from her face to drag his tongue up her cheek to the corner of one clenched eye.  Her breath wafted against him, hot and humid.  
  


She slit her eyes open, hazy and dark. "I knew there was a reason I kept you around," she said, voice throaty, breathy, and so very warm.    
  


"Mmmm," he hummed, nuzzling against her temple as he drew his hand out of her pants.  His fingers left damp trails up her side. "A sense of style, hell of a shot...dashing good looks, good with my hands…"  
  


Shepard laughed, sharp and bright like the crack of gunfire and Garrus grinned.  She shoved at his shoulder hard, and when he moved, she rolled away.  He watched, head tilted in a leer as she lifted her hips and shoved her pants and underwear down. From the corner of her eye, she watched him. "Hell of a resume you've got there."  
  


"I have it on good word that I come...highly recommended."  
  


Another whipcrack laugh left her as she kicked her clothes off and away and sat up.  She twisted, and he knew she was doing it on _purpose_.  Shepard knew how much he admired the play of her muscles under her strange skin and the bend of her back—the enticing curve of her hip and ass.  Her lips curved coyly when she peered over her shoulder at his admiring gaze, and Garrus pushed himself up.  
  


The bed dipped under Shepard's hands and knees as she moved over toward him.  He was halfway through undoing the remaining leg straps on his undersuit when she pressed her mouth to his cheek.  Her hand landed on his thigh, dragged higher and cupped over him through the fabric. He could _feel_ her predatory smile when she swept her thumb over the faint damp patch, and his breath stuttered and clicked in his throat.  Then she caught up his hand—the one he'd used on her—and drew it up.  Her pink tongue flicked out, licking up the leathery skin of his palm and between his fingers.  
  


For a moment, his breathing seemed to stop entirely, and then he was moving again.  His movements were fumbling and hasty on the fastenings, and he was reaching for her with one hand as soon as he could.  While he shoved his pants down off the jut of his hips, he curled his hand over Shepard's shoulder and pushed her back.  Her arms locked behind his neck, lying snugly in his cowl as she pulled him down with her.  Garrus went all too willingly.  
  


For a moment he hovered, looking down at her while she smirked up at him.  Shepard was all cool confidence, just the way she'd been since he'd first met her.  Just like she'd been when she left him speechless with her proposition.    
  


Garrus curled his hand around her ankle, trailed his fingertips up and behind her knee where he almost reverently teased the thin skin there.  Her legs lay open unashamed and unabashed, and a more inviting picture he couldn't conjure just now.  Moving slowly forward, he made to settle between her legs, but came up short as something _caught_.    
  


Twisting around, Garrus looked back and swore.  One leg of his pants was still caught on his spur where he hadn't quite gotten a strap all the way undone.  In his peripheral vision, Shepard rose up on her elbows with a questioning noise.  The moment she saw him trying to untangle the fabric she fell back and started laughing.  It was a bright sound, happy and clear and so hard it made her chest bounce.    
  


Wryly, Garrus kicked the offending garment over to the stairs once it came untangled and crawled over her. "So much for being smooth," he drawled, fingers hooking under her knee again.  He drew her leg up, hooking it over the jut of his hip.  His cock rested against her, base pressed firmly against her mound and head nestled on her lower stomach.  
  


Shepard smirked up at him sharply, the laughter still coloring her expression.  Her fingers caught under his mandibles coaxing him in close again.  "You still managed to win me over," she said warmly against his mouth, and Garrus huffed out a laugh.  
  


He dragged a hand down her side, thumb skating over her ribs then tugged her up and insinuated his forearm beneath the small of her back.  She arched deliciously against him like this, stomach pressing up into the curve of his own.  His keel rested comfortably between her breasts and he nuzzled against her temple where his mandibles tangled in the flyaway strands of her hair.  
  


Her hand lay hot and familiar at the back of his neck, fingers gliding down toward his cowl as he rolled his hips against her.  The sound she made faded into a pleased hum, and Garrus pushed her leg further up until her knee bumped against his chest.  Leaning back, he slid his palm down the flesh of her thigh to grip her near the join of leg and hip.  His thumb drifted through her damp folds once more, spreading her open under his gaze.  
  


Glancing back up at her, Garrus rocked up on his knees, lined himself up and sunk into her.  His hand dropped away, bracing on the mattress as he breathed out a sharp hiss.  The muscles in the arm tucked beneath her bunched as he gripped her hip and tugged her in closer. As they began to move, he tucked his head low where he could hear the breathy noises she made right in his ear.  He mouthed the join of her neck and shoulder, luxuriating in her being _there_ and _with him_.  He'd lost her so many times…  
  


As if she knew the direction his thoughts were taking, Shepard turned her head and pressed an open mouthed kiss over his mandible.  Her hand snaked down between them and Garrus heaved a shuddering groan at the image it conjured in his mind.  He could feel the brief slide of her fingertips as he rocked into her, slipping against her own flesh in an effort to tease herself closer to orgasm.  
  


The soft skin of her inner thigh rubbed up along his side, from hip to the lower edge of his keel as a tremble went through her.  It spasmed in her thigh and in her back, each of those warm, and intimate places pressed against him.  Garrus slumped further down over her, resting his weight more on his elbow.  He burrowed his hand beneath her head, under her neck, gripping warm and gently firm.  His thumb rested on the throbbing pulse point that seemed to beat out _alive alive alive_.  
  


The change in leverage made her gasp sharply, her back bowing to press up against him.  With a low, demanding and wanting noise Shepard braced one foot in the crux of his calf spur and bucked up hard against him.  The noise she made was near enough to make him crumble like a mountainside finally giving way.  Instead, he gave himself over to her, the rhythm of their joining familiar and fluid.  Wherever she went he would follow--whether that was into battle, or in sex.  
  


" _Garrus_ ," she breathed.  
  


Turning, Garrus pressed his mouth against hers and Shepard parted her lips to kiss him.  He licked into her mouth, tracing her flat, human teeth.  The tension he could feel of her was beginning to draw tight, her kiss sloppy and unfocused but so damned _sharp_.  That was Shepard though, even when she let go of her laser focus she was on point to the end.  
  


She gasped into his mouth, body tensing into a long line of pleasure beneath him.  He felt her every quake and tremor, slowing the roll of his hips to something more gentle and barely there--just so he could feel her through the whole of her orgasm.  Her toes curled and pressed hard enough against the juncture of his spur that it was _almost_ painful, but he couldn't care.  Not with the way she was gasping into his mouth and gripping at him like she might fly apart.  
  


He watched her from the corner of one eye, his own body so strung taut with the need to release that it hurt.  She came down from her high in bits and pieces, blinking dark eyes.  "Nice performance," she said, and it was at once so utterly ridiculous and sentimental that he had no idea how to react.    
  


Clearing his throat, Garrus gave an experimental rock of his hips that drew a sharp inhale from her. She was still feeling oversensitive, then.    
  


Her palm pressed against his chest, pushed, and without a thought Garrus drew back from her, sliding free.  She followed after, hand pressing him back to sit and in a moment she straddled his thigh.    
  


"Shepard," he said, "that can't fee—" His mouth snapped shut at the _look_ she gave him, all sharp eyes and sharper smirk.  She never had to tell him to _shut up_ when she could deliver a look like that.  
  


Then she was leaning in, her hand curving firm and familiar around the base of his cock while she buried her face against his neck.  Garrus palmed her back, fingers spread to span the space between her shoulder blades.  Her nose bumped against the underside of his chin in counterpoint to the stroke she gave his cock.  As she pressed her mouth to the sensitive hide just under his chin, she swiped a nimble thumb against the underside of his cockhead.  
  


Her hand squeezed on the way down, calluses rough but not too rough, and on the next tug upward he sucked in a breath.  His hips jerked up into her hand, and she gave another squeeze, tug, a flick of her thumb and that was _it_.  His mandibles flared wide, a stuttered sound clicking in his throat as he came on her hand and his own stomach.  
  


The stroke of her hand turned gentle, drawing him through it until he was entirely spent.  Garrus slumped forward against her, his forehead resting on her shoulder, and stroked down her back.  Shepard peppered kisses against his neck, breathing out a content sound that made something in his chest go tight.  
  


For a long, quiet moment they rested there as their bodies cooled and their pulses slowed.  Garrus' hands continued to map her back, and in a mirror of the movements, her hand brushed along his neck.  All around them, the _Normandy_ hummed, quiet and familiar.  
  


"Hey," Shepard said quietly, moving to tap her knuckle against the side of his face.  He turned, following the motion, and she pulled him to press his forehead to hers.  Their breath mingled as warm as the smile she gave him. "We made it."  
  


"Yeah," Garrus said, huffing out a breath of a laugh.  Against all odds, they'd fought and won the war and made it back home.  "Yeah, we did."  
  


In a few moments, they would draw apart and he'd fetch the lotion she kept in the bedside drawer to ease chafed sting of her skin.  Then, he knew, they'd head back out into the ebb and flow of the _Normandy's_ crew.    
  


For now, though, they had this quiet moment and he couldn't ask for more.


End file.
